I'll give you that. For some reason, he identifies Gonzaga as a Jesuit school and fails to do that for X and Creighton. No big deal, but the write-ups were rather scattered. Also, given the strategic direction of this thing, I don't even know why he bothered putting UCONN and UC in the mix.

The key phrase in the article. "The current Big East basketball schools could earn as much as $5 million initially and cut new members in at a lower rate that gradually increases over time."

Rovell's article is just another example of the E$PN standard of journalistic excellence.

There's no TV pot of gold without X and BU. When you think about it, X and BU should get more 'cuz deal ain't happening without them and they don't have to move. I think VCU will make a late charge and make this a stellar league.

I'm surprised Richmond is not getting a more serious look. I know VCU has deeper recent success, but Richmond seems like a better fit with those schools. If there were one or two other public schools being discussed maybe I would feel otherwise, but being the only one makes it feel like fitting a square peg into a round hole.

What is a little interesting. Is that if they are really getting infatuated with the idea of VCU and given the logistical reasons for SLU, Dayton sort of gets squeezed.

That's exactly how I'm looking at it now. Dayton's biggest threat in all this is VCU. Can you imagine a situation where Dayton is sitting there as a long-time resident of the A10, only to have a new member - VCU - show up, but only for one season, as though it was able to use the A10 as its base camp, passing UD by on the way up the mountain.

VCU certainly has the resume. It's achieved that with multiple coaches. It's fan following is solid. It provides more "non-Catholic balance." And it even provides geographic balance, in that it provides an eastern school to bring the eastern side of the new conference to 6 teams.

If PRIVATE is the driver, then VCU is out of the picture. If it isn't an issue, then this could get interesting. The quiet conversations that continue must be very interesting.

I still can't get over the basic premise of this whole thing, which to me sounds like a gunfight. One guy weighs 150 pounds and shows up with a pellet gun. The other guy weighs 300 pounds and shows up driving a tank. The guy with the pellet gun points it at the other guy and says "Give me all your money." And the guy driving the tank gets out and reluctantly hands over all his cash.

The A-10 teams in this mix are driving the tank. The C-7 teams are shooting a pellet gun. When 6 of the strongest 8 teams in this rumored new league are not currently part of this new league, something is wrong!

What probably should happen at this point is that XU, Butler and whoever else want to get on board should just form their own new, smaller league. If they're going to leave the A-10 anyway, why not?